The Language of the Soul
by SleepingSeeker
Summary: Donatello hates the way he laughs. April is a terrible lab assistant, but a world class towel-snapper. She also happens to think his laugh is the cutest laugh she's ever heard. 2k14 movie 'verse. Set in the Love's Incipience series. Beginnings of DonatelloxApril.


**The Language of the Soul**

Her comment is unexpected. The witticism is well crafted and surprising. It hits him somewhere between his ribs and he inhales with a sharp gasp. Unable to help it. The oxygen he's taken in transforms into the normative response, but he fights it. At ease enough around him and his brothers to spend the weekend afternoon with him here in his lab, April has shifted the power dynamic from clinical and quiet assistant to pleasant companion before he is ready for the adjustment.

So when the joke comes, he is unprepared. Resist though he might, it's no use. It's pressure in the most god-awful sense. The building force rising from the base of his sternum, climbing rapidly to strain at the back of is pursed lips. He can't take it. It happens too quickly. He can't hold it in, impossible to fight a natural response such as this, and so, from his mouth burbles out the most hideous emasculating sound his vocal chords are able to produce.

_"Mwheheheehee ahaha!"_

He chokes it back, but too late; the inevitable snort follows, much to his horror and despair. And he knows from the corner of his eye, from the instant she stiffened at the first break of noise that yes, she heard it; all of it. He covers his mouth with the back of one gloved hand; clears his throat violently and closes his eyes behind the thick safety glasses. More than anything he wants to dissolve into the polar aprotic solvent mixture sitting in the glass beaker before him.

To his chagrin, he hears her make a choked sound and before he can explain this hideous fashion of laughter as something he has no control over, she is chuckling whole heartedly and without constraint.

Donatello looks from her to the beaker and back again. Is she laughing at him or with him? How can one tell the difference? He isn't sure and it's killing him bit by broken bit. He blinks rapidly as his face heats and burns. At a loss, but deciding to pretend it's not bothering him, he fumbles with the glass vials; pours too quickly and from the wrong flask.

There is a moment where he can only stare at what he's done, his keen mind already calculating the discharge rate and range of coverage as he's turning and knocking her back; cutting off any further laughter; tackling her roughly to the floor; shielding her body with his. She seems tiny beneath him and altogether too fragile. It both thrills and frightens him. What if he just broke one of her delicate bones?

As they hit the ground there is a popping, fizzing, curdling noise and then a hiss. Her eyes are open where she lays beneath him and despite wearing the safety goggles, he covers her face with one large hand to protect the delicate skin. He will not risk any of her getting burned for his negligence. She trembles and he feels a tremor run through him. The source of which he cannot identify. Things pull inside him that make him warm and writhe internally. Externally, he jumps as the exploding liquid hits his shell and steams. He lets out a soft hiss and then slowly moves his hand from her face.

He expects her to be furious for his lack of decorum and worse, his error with something as elementary as basic chemistry. He hopes he has not injured her or hurt her in any other way. His throat works as he devises an apology. The words are falling from his lips as he begins to rise up and off her.

"A-April, I … I am so … I should not have …"

But his words falter upon gazing down at her face. Her goggles are askew; eyes are open but pinched nearly closed with delight; cheeks flushed and rosy; mouth split in a wide smile full of delight and astonishment.

She gasps between bursts of laughter, "Holy crap, Donnie, did you just blow up your ch-chemistry set?"

He blinks down at her then glances over his shoulder to the ruined mess that is now dripping down over the edge of the lab table in bright bluish globs. A scent of sulfur and spoiled milk hangs in the air. The tingling sensation from his carapace indicates slight burning. Hopefully, no scarring will ensue; he is fairly certain there will be none. Still, April isn't wrong. And a curl of humiliation coils in his middle.

Beneath him, he feels her stomach jumping as she begins to break down into intensive giggling. The motion is not unpleasant. He scrambles back as the vibrations of her body makes him feel … things. Things he is unprepared for. Face flushed, he sits back on his haunches as she rises up, pulling the goggles from her eyes and tosses them at him. He catches them against his chest and starts to laugh as well. Irrationally. He should be upset. He should be apologizing. But he is unable to stop. Unable to quell the impulse before the dreaded sound bursts free again. Followed by the hideous snort.

He coughs into a loose fist and gives her a sidelong glance. She's peering at him from beneath a mess of tangled hair. She runs her hand through it, to push it back and oh, what he wouldn't have given to be bold enough to have done that for her. But he chides himself and sweeps his eyes away.

"I'm really sorry. Don't take this the wrong way … but … You have the cutest laugh I think I've ever heard."

The words hit him as a puzzle and at first he doesn't seem to comprehend the arrangement. He rearranges the meaning into the most plausible outcome. "You mean to say, I have a most ridiculous laugh," he corrects quietly to the goggles in his hand.

His heart is in his throat as she shifts and moves to sit next to him, her thigh pressing against his own as she drapes an arm around his shoulder in a companionable way. He freezes.

"No, that's not what I said, Donatello."

Any rebuke to that statement is lost as his body fires signals both in warning and in arousal throughout his system. His heart is suddenly in a frenzy and his throat is tight. This is meant as a friendly gesture, nothing more, he is sure. And yet. Her scent is honey and cream; vanilla and there beneath that, something richer, more feminine and somehow directed at him alone; as if her body were speaking some code that only his own could decipher; making his mouth water and his body stiffen and throb like some kind of beast going into rut. He has to clear his throat again before he can speak coherently.

"W-Well, I'm not especially fond of, uh, um," he finds himself unable to complete his sentence as her hand is resting upon his shoulder followed soon by her cheek. Emotions churn within him at this simple arrangement of her body so close to him. Too close. Much too close. She is at turns warm and soft; inviting and impossible. He stares hard into the goggles clutched in his hands; a garbled reflection stares back; a reminder of what he is and what he should expect from this existence. Nothing and less than that.

"What a mess," she says.

And for an instant he doesn't know if she's speaking about him or the lab. Either would be a judicious insight. He is a mess of disfigured components; reptile; mammalian; an amalgam of two animal classes that never were meant to bond as one. Both part of phylum chordata, yes, but beyond that, not many more similarities. Not really. He is, in short, a monster.

She turns her face so that her chin now rests where her cheek was, "Sorry for distracting you. I guess I'm a terrible lab assistant after all."

As if suddenly realizing her position, she gets up and dusts herself off, reaching down to offer her hand. He is at once relieved and bereft. He glances at it, but does not take it, he's suffered enough from her imposing upon his personal space, no need to torture himself more; getting up with a smooth motion to stand next to her. She leans back and makes a small noise, covering her mouth.

"Oh no! You're all blue and sticky back here."

"Ah, well," he responds and doesn't know what else to say.

"I really am the worst."

Before he can respond to that, she is hurrying around the room. He twists to follow but she is suddenly behind him and on him with a moist towel, wiping down his carapace and inadvertently sending bolts of pleasure through his system from the friction. His breath catches in his throat; eyes widen.

"Hopefully this doesn't stain … oh dear," she pauses and reaches out and grips his bicep that he cannot help but tense. Immediately feeling the fool for showing off. If her grip squeezes in appreciation of the bulging muscle, he is sure he's imagined it. Her face comes around his arm and she squints. "I think it may need a, uh, more thorough washing to get the color out."

He nods rapidly. "It's fine," he manages tightly.

"You sure? I think a shower is your only hope. You should get in there while I'm here," she says and folds her arms as she steps back into view. Then her eyes open wide and her mouth gapes, "I-I mean, not that I'm offering to, uh, _aheh ha_, t-to …"

Her face turns several shades of pink before settling on an attractive flushed peach tone. Donatello cannot hide the smile teasing the corners of his mouth. Her discomfort and nervousness puts him at ease. He is not the only one feeling awkward and it makes Donatello feel less alone. Less isolated. And more than that … he can't help but see in her fumbling a certain charm that endears her to him. He wants to rescue her from herself, but finds her rushing on, making things much worse before he can speak.

More flustered than before, she says, "What I mean is … that I will … clean this while you are getting wet, er, soaped down, uh! Clean! While you get clean I will clean! Here. This." She points at the table. "I will clean this lab while you clean your body!" Then claps before dropping her face into one hand.

"_Mwheheheehee ahaha!_ _SNORT_!"

Her face shoots up. "Are you laughing at me!" She squeaks and swipes at him with the towel playfully and he steps back. "That is not very nice of you!" She swipes again with a determined look but this time he catches it and twists it and snaps it back, just zapping the very edge of her hip.

A look of shock is quickly replaced by a wide grin. She wags her finger at him. "You are seriously asking for trouble. Do you know that besides biomedical studies and engineering, I studied with the master of towel snapping?"

Donatello, grinning, cocks a brow.

Through her giggling, she goes on, "That's right. I happen to be a world-class towel snapping champion."

He snaps at her again and she dodges with a triumphant cackle, this time catching the end of the towel and yanking it from his grasp, but in doing so, her hip knocks into the table. A beaker tips and falls to the floor; shattering. From the other room Master Splinter calls out in a worried voice, asking if everything is alright.

Donatello and April exchange glances, then gaze at the mess on the table, the floor and the surrounding walls. In a second they are both laughing. Without care, without any self-consciousness. April covers her face with her hands and bounces in place while Donatello shakes his head, laughing freely and openly. Feeling sure that this time, she's laughing with him.

And the resulting feeling of this revelation is nothing less than incredible.


End file.
